"In Room 101 is the worst thing in the world," Winston Smith's torturer told the defiant hero of George Orwell's dystopian novel "1984." Now, rooms 1-4 of the Bridgestone Museum of Art's temporary exhibition galleries are hosting a whole array of the world's "worst things."

That's because the museum is currently showing a small but intriguing exhibition titled "Kowaii: The Many Aspects of Fear," assembled from its permanent collection. Gluttons for punishment can take their pick from "Death and Satan," "Monstrosities" or "Fear From Within" -- the themed sections into which the show is divided.

Loathing, like love, is a personal matter -- what does it for me may not do it for you. It's little surprise, then, that most of the works on show here aren't all that scary. Generally, they say as much about the psyches of their creators, and the preoccupations of their time, as they do about the universal anxieties of humankind.